The ESCWA report and Israel

The resignation last Friday of the Executive Secretary of the Economic Social Commission for Western Asia  (ESCWA) Rima Khalaf is not going to pass without leaving a bitter legacy at the UN body.

It will also cast much doubt on the credibility of the newly installed UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The issue erupted over an ESCWA report charging that Israel “has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole”.

This is an indisputable fact, not only for those who authored the report but also for all the parties that were coerced to reject it.

As expected, Israel was outraged, accusing ESCWA of introducing biased, fake and hostile anti-Semitic stuff. 

So was the US UN representative Nikki Haley, who said that UN agencies must do a better job at eliminating false and biased work and who applauded the secretary general’s “decision to distance his good office from it”.

Nothing of what the report, or its authors, has been accused of is correct. The report is credible, factual and reflects a terrible reality that Israel wants to keep hidden from the public eye.

The outrage, therefore, is because Israel does not want to see a longstanding tradition of impunity and exemption from international law requirements broken: Israel is beyond criticism or blame, particularly at the United Nations. 

This privilege has been routinely guaranteed by the US.

The sequence of events was a follows. Israel wanted the ESCWA report removed from the UN agency’s website. Both Israel and the US asked the UN secretary general to act. Like many of his predecessors, Guterres had to take the safest course out of what could have precipitated a crisis, ordering ESCWA chief to remove the report.  He would not risk his highly privileged UN position for the sake of the Palestinians.

In such situations, one is not used to principled positions, loyalty to the rule of law, respect for the provisions of the UN Charter, or even respect for the truth. What usually matters is one’s selfish interest, however cowardly and hypocritical.

It is quite unlikely that the secretary general is convinced that his order to have the report withdrawn is professionally and morally correct.

He could not base his decision on the report content. All he could use as pretext was lack of coordination: he was not consulted, he complained.

But everyone knows that his decision was the direct outcome of pressure and his acquiescence was purely motivated by his interest to save his skin.

ESCWA Executive Secretary Khalaf was the only one who put her professional and moral integrity before her personal interest.

Her resignation letter included a significant number of messages to Guterres. She demonstrated courage, responsibility as well as clarity in defending her position, while at the same time rebuking her superiors’ evasiveness and undue abdication.

Khalaf exited her UN position with courage and honour, leaving many in the trail to cope with the disgrace they brought upon themselves as well as upon the UN organisation by meekly submitting to intimidation.

She emerged as the only winner among losers.

Israel did indeed succeed in having the report removed from the ESCWA website, but the report and its damning conclusions are all over the place, having been given prominence and outstanding publicity as a result of the panic and the desperate efforts to have it suppressed.

As such, condemnation of Israel’s actions against the Palestinians, of it the apartheid regime in the Palestinian territories and of its constant violation of international law is being compounded by its continued attempts to distort history and to conceal its crimes rather than stop them.

On his part, the UN secretary general also succeeded in distancing himself from the problem, thus evading blame, but his loss of credibility and face may need loads of damage repair, if at all possible.

Guterres’ ascendance to the highest UN post has been viewed with some hope by many, including in Jordan, judging from some of his better positions as UN Commissioner for Refugees.

Unfortunately, none of his previous positions have been sustained. Any such hopes, therefore, are now abated.

Also unfortunately, the job of the UN secretary general, which comes with countless privileges and benefits, seems to be designed in a way that keeps its occupier under the direct influence of the five permanent Security Council members, his tiny but highly influential electoral constituency.

UN secretaries general are voted in office by the General Assembly, but only after Security Council endorsement, which is usually decided by the permanent five.

The system is indeed defective.

When faced with the choice between interest and principle, most secretaries general opt for the former.

Over the decades, the credibility of the UN has been steadily deteriorating.

What happened last week is hardly surprising or unusual. Influential member states hardly find it embarrassing, let alone shaming, to defend Israel’s crimes while, at the same time, offering it protection, in full defiance of international law.

The system may be corrupt, but the facts are too striking to hide.